Because 78 months is shorter than the 15-year Connecticut term Iza is already serving, and the two run at the same time, the Los Angeles sentence adds no time in custody. What the case adds is $23.4 million in restitution and convictions on three further counts.
A federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced Adam Iza to 78 months in prison on Monday for defrauding Meta, evading taxes on the proceeds and paying off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies to gather police information on people he was in conflict with.
United States District Judge Percy Anderson also ordered $23,402,766 in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. Iza, 26, who called himself "The Godfather" and lived in Beverly Hills and Newport Beach, pleaded guilty in January 2025 to one count of conspiracy against rights, one count of wire fraud and one count of tax evasion.
The office said the new term "runs concurrent to a 15-year federal prison sentence received last month in Connecticut," where Iza was sentenced over an attempted bitcoin robbery. Concurrent sentences are served at the same time rather than one after the other, so time in custody is governed by the longer of the two. Seventy-eight months is six and a half years. The Connecticut term is 180 months. On those figures the Los Angeles sentence expires well inside the one Iza is already serving, and adds no further time behind bars. What the Los Angeles case adds, beyond the Connecticut term, is $23.4 million in restitution and convictions on three further counts.
The fraud ran through Meta's business manager accounts: Iza obtained access to the accounts and their credit lines without authorization and sold that access to advertising companies, the office said. Meta's clients were billed for advertising they had not bought, and Meta refunded them and absorbed the loss itself.
Three dollar figures appear in the case and they measure different things. "From 2020 through 2022, Iza received approximately $37 million associated with the sale of access to the Meta advertisement accounts," the release says, which is what he took in. The tax count rests on a different window and a different measure: at least $36,360,844 in gross income between 2020 and 2023, on which the office says he evaded $13,286,152 in federal taxes by failing to file corporate returns and concealing his ownership of a company called Zort. The $23,402,766 restitution order is the figure the court attached to the sentence, and it is smaller than either of the others.
The conduct involving the deputies ran from August 2021 to April 2022. Iza hired off-duty sheriff's deputies as security and, the office said, conspired with them to obtain confidential law enforcement information, personal information about his adversaries, and search warrants used to track and harass people.
Five former deputies have been convicted. The release details four of them. Michael David Coberg, 45, is serving 63 months, and the office says he helped extort a rival and arranged a fake drug arrest. Eric Chase Saavedra, 42, received 21 months on September 28 over improperly obtained search warrants. Scott Allen Simpkins, 34, received 18 months on July 13 for obstructing a federal investigation. David Anthony Rodriguez, 45, received one year on July 20 over a false search warrant application.
The same release records the sentencing of Iris Rabaya Au, 37, of Irvine, to 18 months on September 21, 2025, with $1,484,343 in restitution and the forfeiture of luxury cars, designer handbags and three "Godfather" sculptures. She pleaded guilty to one count of subscribing to a false tax return, over $2.6 million she did not report.
Prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum: "Individuals with substantial financial resources must understand that they cannot purchase access to confidential databases, investigative tools, warrants, arrests, badges, or firearms for use in private disputes."
Other federal crypto-related prosecutions brought this year are still at the charging stage, including the case against two former Robinhood engineers accused of buying Hyperliquid perpetual futures ahead of listing announcements, where no plea or finding has been entered. Iza's case is past that point, with a guilty plea entered in January 2025 and sentence imposed this week.
The FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation ran the investigation. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department assisted in the case against its own former deputies.
